


saw your face in a criminal sketch

by bimaukery



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Humor, Secret Identity, idrk how to tag this basically Sloane thinks she's funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 10:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimaukery/pseuds/bimaukery
Summary: The first time the Raven enters the Goldcliff Militia Station, Hurley almost has a heart attack.Based on an amazing tumblr post by asimovsideburnsTitle from I'm Coming After You by Owl City, which is a good Hurloane song





	saw your face in a criminal sketch

**Author's Note:**

> All credit for this idea goes to asimovsideburns for this post  
> http://asimovsideburns.tumblr.com/post/174230603666/captain-bane-didnt-know-the-ravens-real-name  
> Slight warning for violence, I didn't think it was a big enough deal to tag it in the archive warnings but I'll put details in the end notes if you want to check.

The first time the Raven enters the Goldcliff Militia Station, Hurley almost has a heart attack.

She strolls right in, hands in her pockets and a big smile on her face. She’s greeted by Private Song, who points her towards Hurley’s desk.

A small part of her brain is logical. Reminds her of all sorts of relevant information, like the fact that the Raven always wears a mask and therefore they have no identifying features on record, and that she knows Sloane is too smart to get caught like this, and that no one is currently rushing to tackle and cuff the half elf.

The rest of her mind is already busy planning a prison break that won’t expose her own identity. It… _may_ involve jumping into the driver’s seat of their battlewagon and ramming the building at full speed. She definitely could. Might need to add some more armor to the hood, but it’s a _great_ wagon, okay, she could make it work.

She’s distracted from her, frankly, amazing plan by a cheerful “Hey, cutie,” and a kiss on the cheek.

There’s a long moment of silence as the other militia members stop and try to pretend they aren’t staring. Sloane just perches on the edge of her desk and gives her a smile, eyes shining. It’s the same look she’ll send Hurley in the middle of a race, long hair whipping back in the wind and her grin visible even through the mask, like she couldn’t possibly be having more fun, and Hurley feels her stomach flip. If this is Sloane’s new game, she can play too. Maybe she’s a little in denial about how illegal her hobbies are, but she’s too far gone to try and claim she isn’t just as much of an adrenaline junkie as the woman in front of her.

So she responds with a “Hey, babe,” and it sounds almost totally normal.

Sergeant Murphy, the tiefling woman with the desk next to hers, is looking between the two of them with wide eyes. Raising one eyebrow, she leans in. “Who’s this, Lieutenant?”

“They haven’t heard _anything_ about me?” Sloane asks and Hurley bites her tongue to keep from laughing. Then she adds, “Can’t believe you’ve been keeping me a secret. A girl could get offended.”

“This is my girlfriend, Sloane,” she says, ignoring the fake pouting to answer her coworker. She says it loud enough for their audience to hear as well, because it’s faster than letting gossip spread naturally. Murphy’s eyes go just a bit wider, but she’s smiling.

“And she’s taking you out to lunch.” Sloane steals the pen from her hand and stands up to leave. Hurley gives her an unimpressed look; it’s a fun new challenge, sure, but unlike her girlfriend she has a real, legal job and that means she has to do paperwork. She’s gesturing at the unfinished forms in front of her when they’re taken from her desk.

Murphy gives them both a thumbs up and picks up her own pen. “Go on, have fun!”

Murphy has never volunteered for more paperwork. _Ever_. Seeing this miracle for what it is, Hurley thanks her and quickly walks out with Sloane before the other officer realizes how little of that report Hurley had actually completed.

They buy street food and walk along the river, not going too far because Hurley will have to return to her desk eventually. Before that though, she says to Sloane, “That was a good bit, super funny, _please_ don’t do it again. You’re literally a wanted thief.”

Sloane hums noncommittally.

 

* * *

 

She comes back in a week later, and the worst part is probably that Hurley can’t be upset about it.

_She_ knows Sloane’s only doing this for her own amusement. What the rest of the station sees is a caring girlfriend dropping by with an extra coffee and a muffin when she knows Hurley has a late shift that night. She’s going to look like a real jerk if she gets upset about this.

Also it’s a really good muffin.

It starts to be a semi-regular thing, and Hurley calms down a bit after a half dozen meetings pass without any arrests. Sloane will come in, chat with whoever’s at the front desk that day, and either take Hurley out for her lunch break or bring her something to drink at her desk. It’s weirdly domestic, especially when compared to most of the other time they spend together, which includes things like drag racing and spying on rival battlewagon teams.

Add in Sloane’s day job as a high profile masked rogue and really, her joke seems almost harmless.

 

* * *

 

The unexpected thing is that once it isn’t scary, it’s incredibly insulting.

Sloane starts turning up when she’s not there. She doesn’t actually say anything about it. No, Hurley figures this out when she gets back from questioning a witness about a robbery (not Sloane, this time, she knows that without even asking, the job was so sloppy) and the other Lieutenant, an old half orc named Dolan, tells her he thinks “that girl you’re with, she’s good for you. Seems real sweet.”

This would be a very nice thing to hear about your significant other, if it wasn’t coming from the person in charge of hunting her down. Hurley tries to stop gritting her teeth enough to smile when she says “Thank you, I think she’s really something special.” Based on the look she gets in return, she isn’t totally successful.

Sloane is unstoppable when she wants something. Hurley should’ve known that by now. It shouldn’t be a surprise when she keeps this up for months.

It shouldn’t be a surprise when she makes friends. Bonds with Private Song over puns that only work in Elvish. Endears herself to Murphy when she starts showing up with a coffee for Hurley and another for her desk partner, who has finally failed in her battle of wills with Captain Captain Bain and now spends late shifts catching up on all the reports she’s neglected. Somehow has Dolan trusting her enough for them to commiserate over the department's failure to keep up with the Raven. The master thief that plagues the city. The terrible lawbreaker. The woman he has completely unironically referred to as his _nemesis._ He assures Hurley one day that he’s not sharing anything too important to the case, or any of the wilder details. He wouldn’t want to alarm _a civilian_.

Hurley knows she isn't the best cop. She’s too impatient, for one thing, and she’d rather take a hands on approach even when she knows the case would be better served by her administrating. She looks the other way for the more minor offenses, because she knows sometimes this city can be a pretty unfair place to live. She spends her nights sleeping next to a notorious criminal and her vacation days in a ram’s mask driving in races she’s supposed to be stopping.

Yet somehow, compared to the other members of the Goldcliff militia, she’s a total genius. She’d caught the Raven after two months, analyzing the places she’d hit to find the next likely target and mapping out possible escape routes. Hurley had chased her like a bloodhound. They can’t even find her when she’s sitting in the breakroom.

She really likes that her girlfriend isn’t in prison but part of her wants to scream. ‘ _HERE SHE IS. HERE SHE HAS BEEN, THE WHOLE TIME, SITTING ON MY DESK AND ASKING HOW YOUR KIDS ARE.’_

She doesn’t obviously, because she’s not a total idiot. That doesn’t stop the temptation.

 

* * *

 

If Hurley hates when her coworkers are oblivious, it’s worse when they’re competent. They finally catch up to the Raven again, actually stop a heist in progress instead of showing up just in time to see her escape into the back alleys of Goldcliff. She’d gotten away, sure, but this time without even a small portion of her prize. Hurley would be gloating, if her Dolan hadn’t taken his warhammer right to her feathered mask.

When the two of them finally reconvene at home, it’s tense. Sloane’s face is bruised, badly, and she won’t let Hurley try to heal it. She’s quiet most of the night. Not angry, Hurley doesn’t think, but contemplative as she flexes the cracked framing of her mask and tries to determine if it’s worth the effort to fix or if she should just scrap the thing.

The next morning Hurley wakes to an empty apartment. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again, so she tries not to dwell on it when she heads to work. It’s a normal day. Bain comes into the bullpen to talk gruffly at them for awhile. Dolan complains about how close they were yesterday. Hurley heads out with the privates on morning guard patrols, keeping a steady eye on the downtown crowds.

The day after that is normal until about noon when her girlfriend walks in with lunch and an extremely visible black eye.

Hurley’s not even there to see everyone’s initial reactions, which probably disappointed Sloane quite a bit. On her way back to her desk from the holding cells, she hears her girlfriend before she sees her.

Well, first she hears Murphy yell “Holy shit, are you okay?”

Followed quickly by “Yikes, does it look _that_ bad?” in a very familiar voice.

The short hallway she’s standing in is blessedly empty, giving her a moment to pick her jaw back up before she rounds the corner and reenters the bullpen.

“What happened? Were you mugged?” Private Song asks, and then lowers their voice. “Sloane, if somebody hurt you, we can help.” Murphy adds something, too quiet for the words to be clear but certainly echoing the sentiment. It’s not a weird thing to hear, at all; it’s the kind of attitude they should all have towards everyone in their city and she’s glad to feel the sincerity in her coworkers’ feelings. Still, there’s a more personal kind of warmth in her chest to listen to her friends’ concern for someone they know is so important to her. For someone who’s important to them, now, as well. It’d be really sweet if they weren’t the people who’d kicked her ass.  

“I know and thank you, but seriously, I’m fine,” Sloane replies, laughing a little. “That ball came out of nowhere! You should’ve seen the kid’s face.”

Now that she knows their play, Hurley moves forward into the room. The sympathetic wince when she sees Sloane’s face isn’t even a little fake. She’s cleaned up from the last time Hurley saw her, so the blood that had dried down is gone now. That’s nice. On the other hand, her bruising is healing in a patchwork way that leaves most of the left side of her face a deep purple while smaller sections are a sickly yellow color.

“Hey babe,” she greets, and Sloane flashes her a big smile. The officers standing around still look varying levels of concerned. “Still sure you want to take a pass on the healing? That doesn’t look pretty.”

“It’s not that big a deal. It barely even hurts,” she shrugs as she takes her customary seat on Hurley’s desk, pushing aside her pens and folders in a way she’s more than used to by now. “Besides, don’t you think it makes me look kinda _dangerous_?”

She smirks then, and Hurley blushes to the roots of her hair. Sure, the black eye isn’t pretty, but Sloane is. She always thinks Sloane is pretty, which does make her dangerous, because she knows that. It’s sort of how they got into this whole mess in the first place. She pushes through it, replying “Maybe, but I think I prefer your face unbroken.”

“You’ll find some way to bear the sight.” She stands. “I was just dropping in to check, we’re meeting at your place tonight, right?”

Behind Sloane, Murphy gives her a terrible wink. “Of course.”

“Good,” she says, and leaves, but not before ducking down to kiss her. It’s barely a peck, but it definitely doesn’t help the red in Hurley’s face.

She’s waiting for the teasing to erupt, the way it always does after Sloane leaves, but when the chime of the front door opening sounds it’s accompanied by a cheery “Oh, hello Captain! Have a nice day.”

Captain Captain Bain’s arrival cuts off any conversation at Hurley’s expense, but the look he sends her after questioning Song at the front desk is nowhere close to worth it.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, she’s called into the Captain’s office. He’s sitting at his desk, scowling, surrounded by paperwork. Hurley can see more than one report on the battlewagon races, and when he looks up at her and frowns, all she can think is _‘That lasted longer than I thought it would.’_

He doesn’t speak right away, just stares. She hold his gaze. Does her best not to flinch, and to ignore how sweaty her palms are getting right now.

“I’ve been hearing some rumors, Lieutenant Hurley,” he begins, voice rough. She waits. This is it. She’s going to prison forever. “Should we be expecting you to bring a plus one to the officers’ luncheon next week?”

Logically speaking there’s no way Sloane planned this. But somehow, Hurley just _knows_ it’s her fault.

It’s not helped by the fact that when she hears about it, Sloane laughs so hard she falls out of the wagon.

 

* * *

 

There are other criminals in Goldcliff, despite evidence to the contrary. Some of them are even decent at their jobs.

Which means they do eventually get to leave their desks and do actual, interesting work. Hurley’s downtown with Murphy, looking over a jewelry store that had been ransacked in the early hours of the morning. The front window was shattered, coating the floors in shards of glass they’re both careful to avoid now. The display cases haven’t fared much better. All the shelves are knocked loose and one case is completely tipped over. At least half the merchandise is gone. More than a few loose gems are mixed in with the broken glass on the floor.

This sure as hell wasn’t Sloane. She’s never been anywhere near this violent.

Also, Hurley would’ve noticed her slipping out before sunrise.

Murphy’s talking with the owner, trying to catalog the specific pieces that have been taken, while Hurley’s inspecting the broken window. She can’t tell if it was punched in or if a tool was used, but either way it would be almost impossible to climb through without getting caught on the jagged edges. Which means evidence.

She doesn’t find any bloodstains, but there is a long, curling hair caught on one of the larger shards. It’s light blue, which should at least help them weed out potential suspects. She can rule out cross contamination. Besides her and Murphy, only the owner’s been on the scene, and he’s a blonde.

She tries to run through the gangs she knows in her mind. Do the Hammerheads have anyone with blue hair? They get into plenty of trouble outside of the races.

In her focus, she doesn’t hear Murphy wrap up and send the man home. She does hear Murphy let out a big gust of air, and turns to find her looking around at the destruction. “They really wrecked this place, huh?”

Hurley shrugs. It’s really nothing new. “They sure did. We’ll find them.”

“Still, it’s a shame.” Murphy’s hand ghosts over a snapped silver necklace, and then she raises an eyebrow at her. “You could’ve bought something pretty for your girlfriend.”

“Oh, don’t.”

“Hey, Candlenights is coming up.” Murphy shrugs. “Thought you might need a little reminder. I haven’t heard any other plans.”

“Not really your business, Sarge.” Should she get Sloane something nice for Candlenights? She hasn’t brought the holiday up. What do you even buy for a thief? If she wanted a necklace or something wouldn’t she just steal it? Or is it supposed to be a surprise, and that’s why Sloane hasn’t said anything? Oh gods, Sloane probably has something for her and she hasn’t done anything. “I’m not sure this place was quite her style anyway...”

“...Lieutenant?”

“Huh?”

“Do you need help finding a gift?”

“I...might.”

Murphy laughs at her. But Murphy also knows where to get tickets for a band she knows Sloane likes. It’s funny - their game relies so much on avoiding the topic of the Raven that neither of them have thought to avoid anything else. Between the secrets are snacks and small talk, and this is when Hurley understands that her girlfriend and her coworkers actually like each other.

They go to the concert. It’s loud, and amazing.

 

* * *

 

It’s dark the first time they chase down the Ram, and Hurley’s so grateful for that. Once it happens, it feels like it’s always been inevitable. That running from her own captain in the dirty, cramped alleys of this city was guaranteed from the moment she met the Raven in these same streets.

The mask hides enough of her face that she’s comfortably anonymous in the races, but in such close quarters she’s grateful for the extra help the shadows give her. She’s got a lead on Bain at the moment, but she’s not naive enough to think she knows the area better than him. He walked a beat in the industrial district for years, as he’s so fond of reminding junior militia members who complain about late night patrols. So when Sloane had heard alarms in the distance and said they should split up, Hurley had pushed her towards downtown and taken the riskier route for herself.

She’s regretting that now, when she can hear more than one officer thundering down the streets after her, because Sloane’s definitely better at stealth than her. She could sneak past them, or maybe let herself into one of these warehouses and hide out for a few hours. Hurley doesn’t have her own set of lockpicks. The only things in her pockets are the keys to her wagon and her Stone of Farspeech, long since silenced because it wouldn’t stop buzzing.

Well. There’s an idea.

She wedges herself into an alcove behind a dumpster, grateful for her small stature, and turns the stone on to the lowest volume. Immediately she can hear Raya, the dispatcher who always works on weekends, commanding “ _-st Bank, repeating, all units please respond to East Bank. Suspect escaping on foot, be advised-_ ” before she mutes it again. The Ram isn’t getting out of here.

Her mask has to go. That’s a given. The coat too, probably, Bain saw his them both leaving the Hammerhead’s compound in the thick black outfits they wear to race. She pulls it over her head, internally cheering for her past self when she realizes the shirt she’s wearing underneath is a bright green Fantasy WWE shirt. Casual clothes, sneakers, her hair halfway pulled back like she can’t be bothered to fix it; Hurley looks exactly like she does on all her other days off.

She wraps the leather coat around the mask and stows it under her arm, still slinking through alleys and hiding as best she can when she hears other people. Eventually there’s building with a low enough roof that she can toss the evidence up there, out of the way. No guarantee she’ll be able to find it again, but those are the breaks.

Finding her way back to the main roads is easy. She just starts to follow all the sounds she’s been avoiding. Once she’s close, she switches her Stone back on and chimes in, “Lieutenant Hurley responding on the East Bank,” with as annoyed a tone as she can muster.

She catches up with the other lieutenant fairly quickly, schools her expression into something more irritated than terrified. If her face is still red, that just shows how dedicated she is. She must have run all the way to the scene. He doesn’t seem to notice anything off, directing her back towards the captain and the rest of the officers without any real questions. Bain scoffs at her attire when she joins the group, but she just shrugs at him and continues to do her best impression of someone who woke up less than twenty minutes ago. She _was_ supposed to have a full forty eight hours free. As she teases Dolan, it isn’t her fault that they can’t survive a day without her.

“Oh, yeah, lot of good you’ve done,” he shoots back, and tragically he’s right. They aren’t any closer to catching the Raven than they were the day before, and they know next to nothing about her strange accomplice. “Should’ve just stayed home with your girl.”

“Yeah, probably.” She pats him on the back. “It’s okay. We’ll get 'em next time.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The violence warning is that Sloane gets hit in the face as the Raven and gets pretty bruised up. She's fine, but the other characters take it pretty seriously and idk if it might make some people uncomfortable to focus on injuries.


End file.
